'IPhone Moms' Download Apps for Kids

Mothers who own Apple iPhones and iPod Touches are increasingly using the gadgets as full-fledged "media devices" and download apps for their kids, according to a new report from mobile ad network Greystripe.

Greystripe, found that nearly 90 percent of mothers with iPhones or iPod Touches use the units for entertainment. "What this says to me is, at highest levels, smartphones and the iPhone are becoming media devices," said Michael Chang, founder and CEO of Greystripe.

Greystripe surveyed 1,294 mothers reached through its women iPhone/iPod Touch ad network during the third quarter of this year. Therefore the report has a built-in bias toward those who are using the Web to browse the Internet.

Nearly 90 percent of those who responded said they used their Apple devices for listening to music, browsing the Internet and running entertainment applications. Checking e-mail was the second-most popular use, with about 80 percent of women saying they used the units for that function.

The survey found that 86 percent of most iPhone Moms are between 25 and 54. Most have household incomes between $32,000 and $165,000 and 80 percent have attended at least some college. They have children of all ages (but most have kids between 15 and 17) and 59 percent said they allow their kids to use their iPhones. Seventy nine percent of the iPhone Moms said they use their phones for shopping-related activities, including 60 percent who use them to find stores. Greystripe found that 42 percent of iPhone Moms use their phones at the grocery store, primarily to keep track of the grocery-shopping list.

Chang believes advertisers will be most surprised by age demographics which, he said, "skewed pretty old." That information, combined with other findings, such as the fact that 41 percent of iPhone Moms said they are downloading entertainment apps and 21 percent said they are downloading educational apps for their children, is valuable to advertisers, he said. "It is background information for them to draw the conclusion that mobile is a medium that's a great audience to buy media through," Chang said.

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